EA can scan your hard drive and flog contents to advertisers

The EULA of EA’s new game service, Origin, has some spectacular clauses which would mean you would have to be insane to sign up for it.

Under the title of “Consent to Collection and Use of Data”, you give EA permission to “collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, operating system, application usage, software, software usage and peripheral hardware.”

Under the agreement EA may use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve its products and services. But it will also flog the information to advertisers who can send you lots of spam based on the contents of your hard-drive.

To make sure that users get the message it puts a warning in capitals. “ IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION.”

Companies that do this to their customers really do deserve to have their products left on the shelves or never downloaded. Still at least users can say they were warned.